


Red Room Returns

by FawnoftheWoods



Series: Not Alone Anymore [16]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Brainwashing, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Natalia Romanova - Freeform, Past Torture, Red Room (Marvel), Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-22 16:32:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13768080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FawnoftheWoods/pseuds/FawnoftheWoods
Summary: Widow was a graduate of the red room.  This came with certain truths Natasha had learned to live with.  Clint was there for her.  Now she needed him to be there for their team, even against her.





	1. Activation

**Author's Note:**

> So I posted a chapter in Team Molds Together and RikasGreyWolf commented within like an hour. This had me so energized that I had to post this chapter!!!! Thanks RGW!!

Natasha grinned as Clint and Tony sputtered at the child.  Out of the mouth of babes, she’d heard once.  The boy had seen Tony holding the ice cream for Clint and asked if they were here on a date since that was why his sister came here.

Bruce looked torn between being amused and embarrassed behind Tony.  Clint blinked at Tony a moment before casually swinging and arm around Bruce.  “Naw kid, I’m here with this one.  Tony’s just the driver.”  Natasha had to back up a bit before she burst a vein as Steve, who had missed the beginning of the discussion and now looked like a deer in headlights.

Bruce was of course, bright red now and Tony was glaring at the birdbrain.  Natasha and Clint had an ongoing bet on the pair of genuis’s.  Who would crack first.  They also wanted to know who would get together first, the two science bros or the two powerhouses.  Both pairs were adorable.

Natasha was still giggling as she accepted hers and Steve’s cone from the person behind the counter and hands it over to the man.  She saw Steve's amused and questioning look and wished Thor were around more.  She knew the godling was trying to ease out of his relationship with Jane slowly and he was helping with her work so he was visiting a lot.  Still the team had to explain a lot of things twice because both Thor and Steve were out of place/time.  

They sat down to wait for the comedy routine to finish.  Bruce escaped the ecited circle of Tony, Clint and the kid a moment later and joined them.  She and Bruce were just starting on their cones when Steve came up with his question.  

“How allowed is that now?”  

Natasha looked at him quizzically, guessing where this was leading, but wanted to hear him say it.  Bruce looked clueless though.

“Two guys."  Steve gestured.  "The kid didn’t mind that they were both guys, how accepted is that?”  Bruce choked on his shake.

“Steve, Clint was kidding.”  

Steve gave him a patented Duh glare.  Natasha decided to save the two goofs.

“There is always hate somewhere, but the general public’s not bad.”  

Steve regarded Tony and Clint as they took their seat on either side of Bruce.  “I see.”  Natasha smirked.

Not one to pass up an opportunity, she opened her mouth to deliver a sassy remark when the world went white.  She heard one word and the world went white.

“Включать  темный”

000

Clint was the first to notice the change in Natasha’s laughter.  She had gone from a sly smirk that promised wonderful teasing to a sort of bubble headed gaiety.  It made his ears bleed.  He gave her a strange look but she ignored him and leaned over to excuse herself to the restroom.

He leaned to one side casually to watch her enter the restroom and return with no change.  But he could tell something was wrong.

000

Talia grimaced as the man watched her closely again.  This undercover job was hard, thank heavens she had finally been reactivated so she could finish it.  She had never been so bloody sick of something.  Sentiment, sheesh!  Tonight, her orders said.   _Tonight_.

-

Clint disappeared into the rafters immediately when they returned.  Tony had frowned at that, but shrugged.  Natasha was similarly quiet.  Maybe they had gotten some sort of SHIELD signal or something.  Tony asked JARVIS to keep an eye on things just in case and went to join Steve and Bruce for the movie night they had been planning.

-

Talia grimaced, the archer was too _damn good_.  It took her nearly an hour to find the man.  She waited until he was at the other end of the tower before heading for the main room.  Tonight was movie night.  She would be able to deal with them when they split to get snacks.  She settled in the alcove of the kitchen and waited.

000

Bruce ducked in laughter as Tony and Steve nearly fell off the couch.  They were watching the movie Clue.  Deciding to go while the movie was paused thanks to JARVIS and their laughter, he asked for drink orders.

Still chuckling he went through the door to the kitchen where the fridge was.  The hair on the back of his neck was his only warning before an arm came around his neck and a needle entered his shoulder.  Instinctively he head butted back.  Aware that Tony was on hyperaware safety mode what with the assassitwins acting so off, he made sure to knock the glasses off the counter as he threw the person off his shoulder and removed the partially depressed  needle.

Sliding back against a wall to have some protection, he looked at his attacker.

_Natasha_.

He cringed back as she brought out another needle.  “Tasha?”  She rose and slowly began advancing.  He scrambled backwards, feeling the weight of his limbs as the sedative started to take effect.  “Natasha, what’s going on?”   _ And where was Tony _

“Natasha Please stop!”  He could feel the confused anger pushing at his control.  He rose to move again only for a set of blades to pin his clothes to the wall.  She was advancing slowly with the needle and Bruce fought desperately to maintain control and to escape.  “No, Natasha please don’t!”  He saw the needle coming, but it was kicked out of the way.  

He looked up in relief to see Tony and Steve enter the kitchen.  Tony had kicked the needle away and Steve had grabbed her other wrist and yanked her away.  

“You okay?”  Tony knelt next to him.  Bruce swallowed his revulsion at how close he was to an incident.  Tony wasn’t looking at him.  The hero knew better than to take his eye off a dangerous opponent.  “What the hell happened to piss her off this much?”  Bruce shook his head as Steve crashed into the counter nearby.  She spun and leaped at Tony.  Bruce shouted a warning, yanking on the sleeves that held his arms in place, tearing the sleeves some.  She downed Tony and spun to trade punches with Steve a few minutes before throwing him into the freezer and jamming the door.  That would slow him down a moment at least.

Bruce saw Tony rise and call the Iron Man suit, but Natasha yanked him out of its way as pieces of it flew at him.  She kept the dance up, nailing the suit down with various things in the kitchen.  Bruce had not known there was this many battle items in the kitchen!

Still, she stayed one step ahead of Tony and JARVIS and eventually pinned the billionaire on the ground.  Bruce saw the knife as she brought it up to plunge into his stomach.

“NO!  Natasha!”  He could feel the other guy, but Natasha was their friend, something was wrong!  He pulled desperately at his sleeves.  As the knife came down he let go, begging the other guy to protect!

He was only halfway through the transformation when Clint tackled Natasha.  The two assassins rolled through the kitchen and traded blows for the few minutes it took Bruce to suppress the other guy.  Tony was guarding him in front, having gotten his suit on at last.  

Clint wasn’t speaking, but neither was Natasha.  They battled silently, barely even making noises of contact.

It was sheer luck Clint won, Natasha must have forgotten about the new cabinet.  Clint was on her the second she went sprawling.  He was winding his grappling cord around her wrists.  She was thrashing under him, but he was efficiently binding her until he picked up the needle he must have swiped from her and injected the sedative in her system.

Tony breathed a sigh of relief as the assassin fell unconscious.  Clint stayed on her back a bit longer but he finally nodded and Tony felt he could turn to Bruce, who was pinned to the wall.  The engineer hated anything that restrained Bruce.  The man was terrified of being restrained, what might be done to him when he was restrained.  Tony could see green shimmer in the frightened eyes as he quickly yanked out the knives, wanting to ease that desperate look in Bruce’s eyes.

“Bruce, hey buddy, are you with me?”  He could feel shivers rush through the scientist's body as Bruce took some deep, calming breathes.  The man finally nodded.  Tony leaned back a bit to look at him.  His science bro looked understandably shaken, but the green was no longer swirling in his eyes, so that was a plus.

“I’m going to check on Steve.  That freezer door isn’t that thick, he shouldn’t be trapped.  You okay?”  Tony really didn’t want to let go.  Seeing that needle had made his lungs freeze when he'd heard Bruce’s whimpered plea.  Tony neer wanted to hear that sound from the cuddly man again.

His words had caught Bruce's attention, “He’s in the freezer?”  Tony nodded and wondered how aware Bruce was.  Sometimes near transformations disoriented him a bit.  “That’s not good.  He doesn’t like the cold after the ice.”  Tony felt his lungs start to freeze up again and swore under his breath.  Gently placing Bruce on the floor again and making sure he was balancing on his own, he hurried to the freezer door.

Opening it was easy from this side.  He had to look around a moment before he saw Steve kneeling on the ground in the corner.  He hurried forward and pulled the man up.  He wrapped his arms around the trembling form and tried to coax the man out of the freezer.  He saw the door then.  Steve had gotten pretty far in breaking out before succumbing to the panic attack that had him huddled in Tony’s arms.  The door was bent pretty deep.

“Steve, you’re okay.  You are not in the ice.  Come on dude, work with me.  You’re heavy.”  He felt the snort more than heard it.

“You need to lift weights more.”  The voice was breathy and shaking, but Tony was glad to hear it regardless.  “Yeah yeah, a hot shower and you’ll be right as your usual patriotic self.” Steve looked over at Bruce, where Tony had automatically aimed them.  Bruce reached forward with trembling arms and wrapped his arms around Steve’s shoulders, speaking softly in his ear.  Steve nodded several times, so Tony assumed this wasn’t the first time Bruce had helped the Super Soldier out.  

Leaving the two enhanced humans for a moment he approached the assassin twins.

Clint was still on top of Natasha’s back, she was bound effectively as he alternated between watching them and watching her for signs of awareness.  “What happened?”  Clint glanced at him in grave sadness.

“A past came calling.”

 


	2. Actuation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names: I chose Activation and Actuation on purpose. What Natasha and Natalia did and are are so similar that in the eyes of many they are the same, simply with different organization commanding their loyalty. I'd like to think that the difference is the same as the difference between these two words.
> 
> To Activate - to start, to convert into a reactive form  
> To Actuate - to motivate, to impel action in a particular way
> 
> The Red Room gave her reactions, plain and simply. They command, she do, someone refuses her, they die, period. The Avengers, and to a lesser extent SHIELD motivated her to do things. They command and she believes it right so she follows. It is a distinction that I consider important here in a world where many people try to see in black and white.

They bound Natasha to a chair.  Clint had double checked the binds as they waited for her to wake up.  Bruce was helping Tony ice some of his more interesting bruises while they waited.  Tasha had thrown him around quite a bit.  Steve huffed a moment before glancing at Clint.

“What did you mean the past came calling?”  

Clint dragged his eyes from his partner.  He met their leaders worried gaze.  He weighed the sides.  They had been in the Avengers long enough that Tasha and Clint were beginning to trust the Avengers with information.  This, however, was new waters.

He glanced at Tony, who had kept her busy until Clint got there.  Then he looked at Bruce in his ragged shirt.  He blinked, that shirt had been perfectly fine earlier.  His eyes widened as he realized that Bruce had started changing.  He had suppressed Hulk to save Nat.

“Nat was trained by a Soviet intelligence under the KGB.  That program was called the Red Room.”  

Steve nodded.  They had all read brief files on each other.  But Clint shook his head.

“No, Steve, you  _ don’t _ understand.  I’m not talking about training as you or I went through.  I’m talking about programming.”  He looked at his partner again.   “They took in orphan girls and then gutted them, replacing that emptiness with their programming.  Natasha doesn’t even remember before the Red Room.”  Steve swallowed and Clint knew he had gotten through to the super soldier.  He fiddled with the arrow in his hand.   “Phil-…Agent Coulson told me at one point that it was likely she had a recall phrase.  A phrase that reactivated her training beyond her will.”  Steve glanced at Tasha at that.

Clint studied his partner.   “That woman is not Natasha.  She’s Black Widow, Natalia Romanova.  She’s deadly, cunning, versatile and awake.”  Steve and Tony started at that, but Talia simply grinned as she looked up and met his gaze.

“Very good.”  Clint leaped forward as she rolled on the chair.  It was a metal chair and Clint had made sure the rope was woven into the chair.  Clint caught the chair quickly enough and grabbed her by her hair.  She glared at him, not even wincing when he yanked on her hair.

“What’s your favorite color?”  

Natasha snarled at him, but he just watched her with a blank face and waited.

“What’s your favorite color?”  

* * *

Steve watched as Clint sat with Natasha.  He had been sitting there with unending patience for the last 12 hours.  He was asking small innocuous questions about her favorite color, animal, spicy or sweet, ect.  All question surrounding Natasha’s personality because that was what he was trying to reach.

Bruce and Tony had left for a while to let Bruce calm his heart.  Both had stopped back in to check on them.  Steve himself had tagged out with Bruce for a few hours for a nap and meal, but Clint was unendingly asking the same monotonous questions over and over until she answered them.

“What the hell do you want from me?!?”  Her snarl actually startled Steve.  Steve looked over to see Clint smiling at her.

“Your deactivation word.”  

Natalia snarled at him in fluent Russian as he continued asking the pointless questions.

For another 5 hours she fought him, until she froze.  “Clint?”  Clint glanced at her in interest before shaking his head.

“Not tricking me darling.”  She swore at him in Russian again but he just continued with the innocuous questions.

Steve shook his head, recognizing the same determination that led him into a Hyrda base alone to rescue his brother all those years ago.  Clint wouldn't give up on Natasha.  None of them would.  

Clint phone rang at that point and he flipped it, keeping both eyes on Natasha.  He only said two words; “Cat….Done”.  He looked at Natasha with a calculating stare a moment before kneeling in front of her.

“военнопленный”

Natasha immediately stiffened and then blinked a moment.  She glanced around quickly, seeing Steve, but not identifying him.  She froze when her eyes landed on Clint.  She licked her lips before speaking.

“What?”  Her voice was neutral and Steve was curious to note Clint’s shoulders relax a bit. 

“What’s your favorite color?”  

Natasha’s eyes darted around the room, noting the door and window.

“Natasha, what is your favorite color?”  

She suddenly looked straight ahead and started almost meditative breathing.  Clint sighed and sat back.  He glanced at Steve and shrugged before settling into his seat for a long haul.

* * *

Steve blinked his eyes, fighting to stay awake.  Clint had been just relaxing next to Natasha for 4 hours now.  He kept asking the sporadic questions, but for the most part he was just waiting as Natasha looked around.  A few times she muttered to herself, but she always glanced wildly at Clint to see him watching her but not saying anything.  Steve could see confusion slowly enter her eyes as she assessed her situation.

“Barton?”  Clint glanced at her from the string he had been twisting on his bow.  She blinked and looked around.   “I’m…I was reactivated.”  

Clint nodded.

“What’s your favorite color?”  

She frowned, thinking.   “Brown?”  Clint shook his head.

“Not there yet”  

Steve blinked as Natasha frowned in irritation at that.  “What’s your favorite animal?”

Natasha ignored the question and continued looking around.  Steve could see her trying to place the room.  She jumped out of her skin when the door opened and Tony stepped in.

“Hey,  Bruce made Apple Animals.”  

Steve blinked.   _ Really!?! _    Bruce always cooked when someone wasn’t feeling well.  If it wasn’t Tasha, she would help.  He looked at the apple pieces on the plate with raisin eyes and grape ears, all held together with peanut butter.  

Clint helped feed Natasha since Tony made her more upset.  When they were done Tony patted Steve on the shoulder in question.  Steve shook his head.  Bruce needed Tony right now and Clint needed him.  He was fine.

“Was that Anthony Stark?”  Clint nodded at Natasha’s question as she frowned.

“I was being sent undercover as his secretary, no I was sent undercover.”  Steve opened his mouth to answer, but Clint held up a hand to silence him as Natasha worked her way through the memory.  Whatever the training that reactivated her was, it had given her partial amnesia.  She was slowly overcoming it, but Steve could see it was an uphill process as the memories seemed to return faster than she could comprehend them.

“He was both not recommended and recommended.  But then he survived and his psychological evaluation was called off before it could be redone without the poisoning.”  Steve frowned  _ poisoning? _   But Clint was more intent on Natasha as she talked her way through the avengers initiative.

“Nat?  What’s your favorite spice?”  

Natasha looked up at him in confusion, but she firmly answered, “Sassafras.”  Clint’s shoulders finally relaxed and he smiled, kneeling in front of her.

“Welcome back.”  

She smiled and nodded uncertainly and Tony and Bruce stuck their heads in, probably for an update.  They froze at her next question.

“Did I hurt anyone?”

* * *

Steve watched warily as Natasha walked around the common room.  Clint had said she was back to herself but some minor details were probably going to be coming back for a few days.  Clint had immediately swept the spy up and both had disappeared for 18 hours of sleep.  Of course, that left Steve and Tony to deal with Bruce’s near meltdown.

When Tasha had asked if she hurt anyone, none of them had been able to answer.  In truth, only Clint had escaped the fight unscathed this time.  Unlike Hulk, who Bruce could to some extent restrain, and who attacked with a little prejudice, Natasha had been reactivated against her will and knowledge.  But she had retained her understandings of their weaknesses.  She had targeted them.  Steve being shoved in the freezer, pinning Bruce to the wall were all designed to keep them from thinking, regrouping.  She had remembered enough to keep Tony from assembling any help from his suit.  That fact, Tony wanted to work on.  There had to be a way for the suit to lock on to him better.

She had almost killed Tony, right in front of Bruce.  Natasha had once said he wasn’t the only monster on the team.  He had no idea this had been what she meant.  Bruce had spent a long night talking about waking up after his first few transformations with his teammates.  He knew Tony ad heard some of this, but it was time to trust Steve and to tell Tony all of it.  Steve finally understood why the scientist was so adamant to believe that Hulk had hurt someone.

Steve had napped in the common room so when Natasha wandered in about four hours after Tony and Bruce had wandered down to the lab, he was reading on the couch.  He watched as she seemed to familiarize herself with the room again.  She got out the milk, her cereal and a spoon easily, but the bowls seemed to elude her.

“Left above the stove.”  She had spun at his words.  He gave her a smile and waited as she nodded and turn away uncertainly.   “Your juice is in the frig around the corner.”  Natasha seemed to duck her head in acceptance, but didn’t leave in search of the juice.  Instead she brought all her breakfast items to the table and sat down.  She regarded him a moment.

“How did I fight you?”  Steve blinked at her in confusion.  She frowned.  “Clint said I retained my understanding of strategy of the team.  I obviously was taken down by Clint.  So how did I get you.  It wasn’t straight fighting, I know better.”  Steve winced before getting up.  Grabbing a glass and coming over he sat and swiped the milk.

“Why do you want to know?”  

Natasha grimaced as she stirred her cereal.   “Steve, please.”  Steve sighed and downed a half glass of milk.  His mother used to give him a glass to make him feel better.  It still was comforting, especially with beer being no help now.

“Freezer.”  

Natasha seemed to curl in on herself a bit before nodded resolutely and stabbing a spoonful of cereal in her mouth.  Steve let them eat in silence a moment before he decided he wasn’t in the mood for quiet.

“Tony has decided that he wants his new suit to respond to his body language even when he isn’t wearing it.  He and Bruce are down there playing with the design.  Well, Tony is.  Bruce is probably just staring at him and smiling.”  Natasha seemed content to let the talk wash over her as Steve continued giving her a wry report on the technobabble he had survived earlier before the sci brothers had retreated to the lab.  It was clear even to Steve that he had no interest in the topic, but he liked watching either scientist talk.  

Unlike the assassins or Thor and Steve, Tony and Bruce’s backgrounds had produced an impenetrable wall between others and themselves that wasn't entirely artificial in nature.  It was for protection and they both thought on some level they deserved that isolation.  The team had noticed and had slowly started dragging the two genius’s out.  Hearing Tony on a science binge was a special treat even if no one but Bruce understood a word he was saying.

“Did I attack Tony or Bruce?”  Steve halted in his explanation at her question.  He regarded her a moment, but the entrance of the men in question interrupted his response.

“Yup.  Good job by the way, Itsy-Bisty.”  Tony quipped his answer as he beelined for the coffee machine.  Bruce shook his head at the antics, but sat next to Natasha.

“We’re both okay.”  

Natasha grimaced.   “But I did attack you.”  Bruce placed a hand on her shoulder gently.

“And we’re not afraid of you.”  

She looked at him, feeling utter relief in the truth behind his statement.  She met his eyes and realized that he did understand.  Better than anyone else.  

When they had first met she had been terrified of him.  She figured at the time it made sense, he could in fact kill her and she didn’t want to die.  But after working with him for a while she discovered it wasn’t fear of death that made her nervous.  Everyone could see the monster Bruce feared he was.  Maybe, they could see her too.  She had Clint’s trust, Fury’s trust and then Phil’s trust.  Now she had the team’s, she didn’t want to lose it.  She looked at Bruce to see understanding in his eyes.

“Bruce, I-“  

He gave her that dorky smile.   “This team gave me a place to belong even though I sometimes attack them.  I might even kill one of you one day.  But you want me here.  You trust me.  That means a lot, doesn’t it?”  She swallowed as she nodded.

“Thanks.”  

Bruce smiled as Tony finally came over and plopped tea in front of him before sitting and inhaling coffee.

“Hey Red.  When you’re better I’d like to talk about how you subdued the suit.  You killed the camera early in the fight, so I can’t really review it.  Its very frustrating.”  Tony’s whining washed over her and she felt herself relax.  They weren’t treating her like she was fragile or dangerous.  Though Steve did frown at Tony in admonishment.

Before the Captain could open his mouth to berate Tony, a buzz at her hip went off.  Every muscle in her body tensed, recognizing the sound.  She was late for her check in.

Strong, familiar hands rest on her shoulders.  “They have no fucking right to be in the same city as you, let alone reactivate you!”  Clint’s growl was angry and she looked at him in surprise.  Glancing over, she saw Steve nod as he stood prepped for battle.  Bruce was gathering all the cups as Tony called to JARVIS to trace the signal.  Steve looked her in the eye.

“Ready to tell them to fuck off?”

* * *

The man was sitting at the diner, frowning at his watch.  Natasha recognized him immediately as he got on the phone.  Through JARVIS’s hacking they heard his conversation.

“ _ Did she work? _ ”

“ _ She’s late.  Assume failure. _ ”

“ _ Understood.  We will proceed with the next phase and reactivate Him _ ”

“ _ Understood. _ ”  The man hung up and paid for his coffee.  Clint grabbed his jacket as he rounded the corner.

“She doesn’t belong to you anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> военнопленный - POW in russian

**Author's Note:**

> Translation:  
> “Включать темный” - Activate Black/dark


End file.
